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Performers 2016

AUTHORS

Joan SullivanJoan Sullivan is the editor of the Newfoundland Quarterly. As a freelance journalist, her interviews, reviews, and commentary have appeared in The Telegram, The Globe and Mail, and on CBC Radio’sTapestry. As a playwright, director, and actor, Sullivan has worked with the Atlantic Fringe Festival in Halifax, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and the Document Theatre Collective in St. John’s. Her book, In the Field, about Stephen Norris of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, won the 2013 Rogers Communications Award for Non-Fiction. She lives in St. John’s.

Chad Pelley
Chad Pelley is an award-winning author, songwriter, and photographer from St. John’s, Newfoundland. His debut novel, Away from Everywhere, was a Coles bestseller, won NLAC CBC Emerging Artist of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for both the ReLit Award and the Canadian Authors Association Emerging Artist of the Year Award. His short fiction has been published in journals, textbooks, anthologies, and has been recognized by close to ten awards.

Edward Riche
Edward Riche, an award-winning writer for page, stage, and screen, was born in Botwood on the Bay of Exploits on the northeast coast of Newfoundland. His first novel, Rare Birds, was adapted into a major motion picture starring William Hurt and Molly Parker, and his second novel, The Nine Planets, was a Globe and Mail Best Book and won the Thomas Raddall Head Award. Edward Riche lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Jamie Fitzpatrick

Jamie Fitzpatrick’s debut novel, You Could Believe in Nothing, is about estranged siblings, departed lovers, St. John’s, hockey, drink, and the trouble that ensues when an aging disc jockey gets lonely in his motel room out around the bay. His short memoir “These Memories Can’t Wait: Lies My Music Told Me” appears in the anthology Becoming Fierce. He is a member of The Port Authority, a St. John’s writing group that released the short story collection Racket: New Writing From Newfoundland in the fall of 2015. His second novel, tentatively titled The End of Music, is due in 2017. He’s also a longtime broadcaster with CBC Radio.

Paul RowePaul Rowe is a writer, actor, and teacher born in Point Verde, a small coastal community on Newfoundland and Labrador’s Avalon Peninsula. He has written, directed, and performed extensively during a theatre career spanning three decades. In 2015 he was a member of the acting company at the Stratford Festival of Canada. The Last Half of the Year is his second novel. His first novel, The Silent Time, was a finalist for the 2008 Winterset Award.

Lisa Moore
Lisa Moore is the acclaimed author of February and Alligator. February won CBC’s Canada Reads competition, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and was named a New Yorker Best Book of the Year, and a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book. Alligator was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Canada and the Caribbean), and was a national bestseller. Her story collection Open was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a national bestseller. She lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland where she teaches at Memorial University.

MUSICIANS

Ilia NicollIlia Nicoll is a musician living in St. John’s, NL who is known for her lyrical melodies, her unique finger-picking style, and her versatility. A true Gemini, Ilia is as likely to rock out as she is to croon. She has recorded and performed with countless local musicians and bands, including Jake Nicoll, Sherry Ryan, Katie Baggs, Gavin Simms, The Long Distance Runners, and her own band, The Hot Toddies, to name a few. Since 2014, Ilia has written, recorded and produced two solo albums, Caterwaul and i in team, and collaborated with local music legend Victor Lewis to create a full length album Drug’s Young Dream, for the 2015 RPM challenge. Keep your ears peeled for Ilia and Victor’s sophomore album, which will hit the streets of St. John’s sometime this summer.

What OddsWanda Crocker, Gerry Strong, Jean Hewson and Rick West are all long-time contributors to the Newfoundland traditional music scene. They have played with each other in sessions and in various combinations on stage over the years without unfortunate incident. So, why not answer Newfoundland’s desperate need for another traditional band and find fame and fortune before geezerhood takes over entirely? “What odds, may as well”, they thought and hatched WHAT ODDS in the (very early) spring of 2013. The rest is unwritten history.